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GOP Sen demands REAL change in Calif. in exchange for disaster relief: ‘They vote these imbeciles in office’

January 14, 2025 | | Print Article

Republican lawmakers are attempting to draw a line in the sand when it comes to disaster relief for California fire victims.

Instead of blindly throwing taxpayer dollars at what appears to be a perpetual problem, some Republicans including Speaker Mike Johnson, are demanding the deep blue state change its ways.

“We shouldn’t be,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) told Newmax’s Chris Salcedo in response to bailing out the Golden State on Monday.

“They got 40 million people in that state and they vote in these imbeciles in office, and they continue to do it. And it’s just a very small part of them in that state that’s doing it. If you go to California, you run into a lot of Republicans, a lot of good people. And I hate it for them. But they are just overwhelmed by these inner city woke policies with the people that vote for them.”

“I don’t mind sending them some money,” Tuberville continued. “But unless they show that they’re going to change their ways and get back to building dams and storing water, doing the maintenance with the brush and the trees and everything that everybody else does in the country, and they refuse to do it – they don’t deserve anything, to be honest with you, unless they show us they’re going to make some changes.”

Tuberville’s tough-love sentiment was backed by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson who argued for “conditions” in exchange for disaster relief.

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“We’ve got to have a serious conversation about that,” Johnson told CNN’s Many Raju on Monday. “Obviously, there has been water resource mismanagement, forest management mistakes, all sorts of problems. And it does come down to leadership. And it appears to us that state and local leaders were derelict in their duty and in many respects.

“So that’s something that has to be factored in. I think there should probably be conditions on that aid,” Johnson stated before adding that this position was his “personal” belief and he had yet to talk in-depth with Congressmembers on the subject. “We’ll see what the consensus is,” he said.

The call for accountability and to make changes to broken and deadly environmental policies did not sit well with many Democrats:

Jared Moskowitz (D- FL) said “Disaster Aid must stay non-partisan,” and warned the tables might turn on Republicans if Dems regain a majority.

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“The Speaker can find many other ways to hold people accountable,” he stated on X.

The Florida Dem received plenty of backlash for pushing back on conditions:

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